


That being such a very good surprise

by rabbitinthewoods



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Everyone hates Dukat, Garak POV, Garak has platonic respect crushes on people, M/M, Replimat lunches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2018-08-28 15:15:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8451400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabbitinthewoods/pseuds/rabbitinthewoods
Summary: “No, clear away your mess. Goodness, who raised you?”To no avail. Bashir was gone.And Garak was left, with a filthy, cluttered table, having failed in his teachings, mind gone and heart pounding—Bashir, contrary to all expectations, manages to take Garak by surprise and to ignore what Garak wants all in one fell swoop. Now Garak has to unscramble this mess while dealing with his dear Doctor's furious colleges, suspicious superiors and overly interested friends. But the payoff - the payoff will be marvelous!





	1. Drisellic is our Shakespeare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bashir shrugged, his restless energy abated somewhat. “You’re right, of course. It isn’t so much. Alright Garak,” a grin, as bright as any sun, and he leant across the table until Garak would have had to move his hand only an inch to touch him, “you’ve convinced me.”

They’d caught a late lunch that day; Garak was delayed with a distraught Bolian in need of a new suit and Bashir with ‘trying to synthesis a cure for the Romeldian flu, it’s pioneering work really, the protein sequences alone’, only half of which Garak understood. Suits were no laughing matter. The delay had meant the replimant was not so crowded as normal, most having already eaten. The only people around them were a few Bajornas, two of Quark’s Ferengi waiters and a Denobulan family, the latter of whom no doubt had been forced to choose a later time for their meal so they would all actually find a seat. Garak was finding that he almost preferred it this way — quieter, less busy — and would not have minded to have late lunches more often.

“Well I’m sure we can schedule a few.” Bashir said, spoonful of pasta halfway to his lips.

Garak shook his head. “No, no, I don’t think we should. Our regular time is perfectly acceptable.”

“But you just said —”

“No, my dear Doctor, I believe the unpredictable nature of it is part of the appeal.”

“Ah,” he said, tone dour but face smiling. “So you’d rather let unforeseen delays dictate when we take our meal instead of anything else, is that it?”

“Or the _lack_ of delay, yes. What is life without a little surprise now and then?”

“A great deal more manageable?”

“Now really, Doctor, you disappoint me. Where is your enthusiasm? Your self-reported thirst for adventure?”

“This _hardly_ counts as an adventure —”

“Are you calling me _boring_ —”

“And you know I hate surprises. And _no_ , my dear Mr Garak, you are not boring. You are one of the least boring beings I have ever known.”

There’d been a flash of panic when Garak had accused him, and his attempt to clear things up was, as always, endearing. It was perhaps one of the more compelling reasons that Garak had for continuing to needle him. His delightful need to be all at once witty, kind, and a player in Garak’s verbal games often led Bashir to a place between sarcasm and searing truth that never failed to please.

“Flattery will get you everywhere, my dear. Although I must point out that if I am such good company then you can hardly object to a surprise involving a meal with me, that being such a very good surprise.”

A flicker of an expression passed over Bashir’s face, and red rose on his cheeks. That meant something in humans, he knew: anger or embarrassment or physical exertion, among other things. He could safely rule out the last one, given they are sitting down, and the soft lines around Bashir’s eyes led him to discard the first as well. Embarrassment, then. It was a good look on the Doctor.

Bashir mumbled something in return, Garak parried that, and without undue effort they were carrying on as they always seemed to; literature and politics and fashion, with side dishes of philosophy and morality and a quick dip into station gossip. Years after they’d met and Garak was still acutely aware of how unlikely the entire thing was — a Cardassian exile and a living Starfleet stereotype (‘I’m _not_ a stereo—’ ‘Human, eager, naive…’ ‘Alright alright, I take your point—’) sharing food and conversation and, that now uncommon rarity in his life, friendship.

Such thoughts were morose and, perhaps, unbecoming of someone of his experience. But they were true. For a given _value_ of true.

“I think you’re too harsh,” Bashir said, emphasising his speech with a jab of his spoon to the air between them. “We’re not necessarily as community minded as the Union, granted, but the more damaging aspects of the individualistic ethos of parts of Earth during preceding centuries has largely drifted away.”

Garak raised an eyebrow and eyed the specs of pasta sauce now dotting the table, but Bashir, infuriatingly, remained immune. “Really? Well, I’ll allow that such a thing might be true in your mind, Doctor. I can’t see it myself. There is an _obliviousness_ about humanity that grates.”

“Name one.”

“One what?”

“One of these aspects of obliviousness. No, honestly,” he said, when Garak looked sceptical, “I want to hear your take on it. Aren’t you always saying that an outside perspective can help one refine one’s own?”

He _did_ say that. And it was a rare day when he passed on an opportunity to refine his friend’s thinking.

“Very well, if you insist. Finding an example shall not be hard, given who I am sharing a table with.” At that Bashir’s eyes widened and his mouth twitched, but he remained quiet. “Look at the table,” Garak instructed, and Bashir did. “Notice anything...odd?”

“Nope,” Bashir said, getting far too much enjoyment out of this.

“Nothing at all?”

“Not a thing, Garak.”

“Not even, say, these drops of sauce?”

Immediately Bashir took on a befuddled expression, looking from sauce drop to sauce drop as if he couldn’t comprehend why they would be involved. “That’s some of my pasta sauce. Hardly _odd_.”

“I’m sorry, is haphazardly splattered pasta sauce part of the decor where you’re from?”

Bashir smiled, cocked his head, and Garak knew that whatever came out of his mouth next would be a joke. “Of course! No restaurant, cafe, or kitchen table would dare go without it: it would be disgraceful, sacrilege, I dare say!”

Garak rolled his eyes as Bashir’s smile widened to a satisfactory level. “What is a _disgrace_ is your flippant tongue, my dear —”

“Oh come now, I’m teasing, as you well know. Of course we don’t sprinkle sauce on the table. Salt and errant bits of candle wax, now that —”

“You are incorrigible,” Garak told him, but he could hardly keep his lips from turning up at the corners. How was it that this ridiculous man kept him smiling so easily?

“Oh, hardly.”

“Oh, but indeed you are, my dear Doctor. In more ways than one.”

Bashir, predictably, looked affronted, but Garak was not going to be stopped. No matter how many little distractions Bashir sprinkled before him.

“Back to how you are a prototypical example of human obliviousness —” Bashir made to protest, but Garak had been working in misdirection before Bashir had even been born, and so ignored it — “these sauce droplets are only the tip of the iceberg, as you might say. Of course, while the rest of the iceberg may be hidden to _you_ — or perhaps even hidden in its entirety — it is perfectly plain to _me_.”

“You make a man wonder if he has any secrets at all, Garak.”

Ah, a lure. Bashir did seem to enjoy it a little more than was normal for a human when Garak laid out, in fanciful detail, how he had pierced yet another part of Bashir’s ‘mystique’. The man was rather enamoured with his own allure, which was, of course, part of why Garak found him so charming. It may also have been why others found him so grating, but Garak was hardly fit to comment on that. Being so terribly biased in the matter as he was.

But now was not the moment for that lesson. There was a purpose to this, and Garak intended to stick to it.

“Items which lack of observation has made a man unaware of are hardly _secrets_ , my dear Doctor.”

Bashir winced. “Ouch. That’s me told.”

“Not quite yet. You will be, ah, _told_ when I am finished.”

“Well you’d better hurry it up then.” Hurry up! As if Bashir himself was not taking every opportunity to interrupt; a delightful flirtation in a Cardassian, but smacking merely of cheek in a human.

“Humans, besides having a dreadful impatience about them, are messy creatures.” Hand moving from sauce drop to sauce drop, he tried to draw Bashir’s gleaming eyes down. “Prone to disorder, destruction, and chaos. What we have here is but a minor example.”

“Anyone can spill some sauce, Garak —”

“Not everyone has a tendency to throw pads around their workstation so that organisation becomes a far off dream, or has his species’ disregard for native flora and fauna. Wasn’t it you last month who dropped an entire crate of Bajoran lilies off of the first floor of the Promenade, despite Professor O’Brien’s _repeated_ cautions?” It was. Garak knew it was, for he’d been watching Bashir from the entrance to his shop when it had happened. The silk shawl in his hands had gained a few claw holes as the lilies had been pushed from their precarious perch.

“Is this Garak the gardener speaking?”

“It is.”

“Would he care to comment on the Cardassian disregard for native flora and fauna?”

A fair response, but a predictable one. Disappointing.

“Don’t try to change the subject, Doctor. I have commented on that numerous other times, as you well know. Right now we are talking about your indiscretions. Such as, for example, how every lunch we share together ends with you abandoning your dirty plate and utensils and leaving them for someone else to clear up.” Encompassing the table with his hands, raising his scaled eye ridge and giving a pointed stare, he tried to send a clear signal to his lunch companion: I’m Right And You Know I’m Right, Just Try To Deny It (We Both Know You Will).

“That’s ridiculous!” Bashir said, and Garak felt a ripple of vindication.

“You mean ‘undeniably, completely, most fully correct’.”

“ I _mean_ ridiculous —”

“‘You’re right Garak, oh course you’re right, in fact, I have never known you to be wrong.’”

“That’s pushing the boat out a bit.”

“You must concede I am correct in _this_ , at least?”

“Well,” Bashir said, blowing out a great gust of air, and Garak knew he had him. “I suppose.”

“You _suppose_?”

“Well, no, I suppose I don’t suppose, I suppose you are, you know, right. About this!” Bashir hastened to clarify. “I’m not conceding on any of that other stuff.”

“Then, my dear Doctor, now that you have identified the problem will you promise to work towards rectifying it?”

“Well…”

“All I’m asking is that you place your empty items back into the replicator once you’re finished. Not so much.”

Bashir shrugged, his restless energy abated somewhat. “You’re right, of course. It isn’t so much. Alright Garak,” a grin, as bright as any sun, and he leant across the table until Garak would have had to move his hand only an inch to touch him, “you’ve convinced me.”

While he was not entirely certain of that, Bashir’s smile persuaded Garak to let it go. It even persuaded him into a conversation about the merits of _Hamlet_ , a topic worn smooth by repeated visits, so often revived that Garak could probably write the entire thing down from memory; laugh at Polonious here, admonish Hamlet there, express distress at Gertrude’s political ineptitude _now_. Not a step out of place, barely a new thought to add. Familiarity may breed contempt for the most part, but in this instance at least it bred comfort and contentment. It was so often the way with Bashir.

Garak decided to ‘lose’ this argument: sometimes it suited him to let Bashir feel victory. More and more he was winning in earnest, presenting evidence and trains of logic as foolproof as Garak’s own, enlightened and a pleasure to concede to. Garak couldn’t even take all of the credit for that. Bashir, it seemed, was educating himself beyond what his lunch companion saw fit to give him. How often now had Garak come to Bashir’s office to find a treatise on Cardassian anatomy sat upon the Doctor’s chair, scrounged from who knew where? Or sat down to a meal with him only to hear literature and poetry fall from Bashir’s lips which Garak had never thought to give him? Once he’d even brought Garak some thick Cardassian wool, abandoned in a military storage facility on Bajor, found again only by ‘accident’, Bashir said; he’d been down in Joradell by request of the local medical personnel, and had happened upon it during a lunch break. Garak had been forced to shoo Bashir out of his shop with some haste once he’d received his gift, lest his friend notice the prickling in his eyes. Garak knew every military and civilian storage facility on Bajor: there were none near Joradell. How unlike Bashir not to boast, he’d thought, and fought to feel pride more than affection.

Still, there were more discussions where Garak was the victor than those where he wasn’t. And occasionally it paid to gift those discussions to Bashir. Occasionally Bashir even noticed what Garak was doing, and became torn between indignation and a soft thanks that was entirely inappropriate. Garak ‘lost’ because it benefited him to do so, not out of any kind of sentimentality. Honestly.

Losing this particular argument — _Hamlet_ was so banal it pained him, but today “I can see how some elements of it might be tragic” was the opinion he was presenting — meant that Bashir was distracted enough by his triumph that Garak could give him his _true_ gift with a minimum of fuss. Fuss without purpose being, of course, an abomination to a man as refined as Garak.

“I’m glad you're finally seeing sense on Hamlet,” Bashir was saying, which was the perfect opening.

The datarod slipped easily from his pocket. It caught the light briefly, and Bashir’s eyes flashed to it — such sharp eyes, for a human — as Garak extended his arm over the table between them.

A small smile was permitted to sit on his face. “Then perhaps I can encourage the same of you regarding some Drisellic.”

Drisellic was a Cardassian playwright who enjoyed much the same renown within Cardassian culture as Shakespeare did in human. Bashir had been torn on her, utterly adoring some plays while regretting ever setting eyes on others. A predictable uncertainty of opinion for the good Doctor, who held a solid regard for only a few things in life while everything else contended with existence upon a pensive carousel. Garak despaired of this; a _deliberate_ inconsistency was one thing, carefully cultivated and deployed at key moments, but one apparently beyond one’s own control? Another item he was considering refining in his friend.

And yet Bashir without it would not be quite Bashir, would he? A tragedy by any measure. Certainly something he would mourn, when he thought about it. Which was...curious.

But Drisellic, _Drisellic_. Upon _this_ matter there could be no see-sawing, not swaying to-and-fro from one temporary mode of feeling to another. No! Of Drisellic he was determined to convince his friend to feel only love. Why not? Drisellic was a master of her craft — exiled, ostracised, true, but weren’t so many great craftsfolk of the Union now? Of course, of course — beyond compare among her peers, turning out such great works even into her twilight years that it was said she could ‘pen glory onto a page’.

“Which one?” Said Bashir, with an unnecessary tone of caution.

“Her greatest, of course. I thought I remembered you mentioning something about it? Well I’d lost my copy, but found it yesterday in a box of fabric cutoffs! You never know —”

“My God,” Bashir said, quite ruining Garak’s little spiel, “you mean _Watchers on the Coastline_? I’ve been looking for that forever!”

“Yes, I recall. Which is why I am giving it to you: I’ve read it so many times, I will hardly miss it for a little while longer.”

“But I barely mentioned it, and that was weeks ago. I was just — I only _said_ that I’d read a few lines and was excited about it.”

Garak took on a demeanor of mild surprise. “Really? I would have sworn you’d said more.”

“No.” Now Bashir had that look about him of wheels turning in his head, calculating and weighing coincidence with cunning, which Garak had _so_ wanted to avoid. “No, I only mentioned it once, because we’d been talking about Drisellic, and then you went off on one of your impassioned speeches on the merits of _Cold Morn_ , which you know I wasn’t that fond of —”

“I would hardly say _impassioned_ , Doctor. A good opinion of it is only reasonable, given its quality —”

“Positively _ecstatic_ speeches, I know them by rote you know, I could create sound bites out of them and sell them as adverts for Drisellic’s works, which isn’t the point; the point is that I’ve spent near a month trying to find this, hoping to read it. Hoping to surprise you, tell you all about it. Instead you latched onto one throw away line and have surprised _me_!” Breath spent, Bashir appeared divided between dismay and joy. “Garak!”

“Yes?” Garak was trying to maintain a dignified quiet — Bashir’s words had already gained the attention of half the Promenade, no doubt — but he decided that a little glimmer of mischief in his eyes would not go amiss. Bashir was so fond of drama of this sort, and, despite Garak’s best efforts at discretion, a drama it truly was. So he might as well play along now and make Bashir’s day.

“You fiend,” Bashir said, which had been entirely expected. What was _not_ expected was, “I could kiss you!”

Garak’s thought process short-circuited briefly. “I...beg your pardon?”

“I really could Garak,” Bashir said, utterly oblivious to the confusion he’d unleashed, “you never fail to keep me on my toes, do you? Next thing I know you’ll have — Garak?” Finally he paused and took in Garak’s expression. “Are you alright?”

“Ah, momentarily stunned, Doctor. Should I expect you to try to kiss me now or later?”

“What?”

“I merely want to be prepared.”

“Prepared?” Typically, Bashir had barely paid attention to that which had come out of his own mouth.

“‘I could kiss you’, you said. This is a common human reaction to gifts, I take it? Although, I must confess I have not seen you kiss any of your other friends when they give you presents — perhaps it is only for literature?” A worthy rally, if he did say so himself. Now, he must only wait for the explanation. Bashir surely didn’t mean to _actually_ kiss him. Ridiculous.

“Oh! No!”

“Merely plays then?”

“No, Garak, it’s — ah — it’s just a saying.”

“A saying? Ah.”

“It’s — yes —” Bashir was flustered beyond what Garak would normally expect, oh dear — “it is just a way of expressing gratitude, really. That’s all. Um. Just — you know, some people _would_ kiss friends, I suppose, to say thank-you. But for a lot of people the saying is almost as good.”

“Almost as good? Well, your species does have an unusual preoccupation with ‘kissing’.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Now they were back on more familiar territory, and the Doctor was regaining his composure.

“Hardly. Not all species display affection through a touching of lips.”

“That’s right! Cardassians press palms, don’t they?”

Unaware that the Doctor had known that, Garak quirked a brow. Bashir took that as a cue to continue.

“You press them flat for the equivalent of a chaste kiss on the cheek, something among friends or family, and then interlock your fingers for something more, well,” how odd, he appeared ruffled again, “intimate.”

“Your knowledge grows and grows, Doctor.” Garak said. Which was not strictly a confirmation.

All the same, Bashir grinned in triumph and began to natter away about all the _other_ alien displays of affection he was familiar with, which was a list Garak could have happily lived without hearing.

Eventually managing to steer the conversation back to most pleasant topics — the heretical nature of early Hebitian poetry and who Quark had scammed this week, unrelated but both delightfully illegal — Garak found the last ten minutes of their lunch break passed without any further dramatics. Perhaps Bashir had a conflicted look about him, twisting hand over hand and biting his lips, but it was entirely likely that he was thinking about Romeldian flu again. His dear Doctor was so easily distracted when things weren’t life and death. But Garak forgave him: he was carrying his side of the conversation well enough.

The Denobulan family had left, Quark’s waiters had hurried off as soon as they’d heard enough of the gossip about their employer, and Garak was most unwilling to leave the replimat himself. How droll that Bashir’s allotted lunch should only be an hour. He could easily talk with the man for longer. But there he was, standing up and saying his goodbyes, wide mouth apologetic in its smile but frame bouncing with energy; there was nothing Bashir liked so much as a medical challenge, and he had plenty of those today. So it was with a tinge more force than he might have otherwise used that he reprimanded his friend.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

He meant, obviously, Bashir’s empty plate and cup, his used cutlery, and, at a push, the splotches of sauce on the table. Bashir looked far too ready to run off and leave them, ignoring Garak’s earlier admonishments.

Bashir frowned; he frowned so delightfully, his brow scrunching downward and his mouth falling open into a lopsided gape. Garak rolled his eyes.

“Er, yes,” Bashir said, and then reached a decision, “yes yes, of course.”

Thank goodness, Garak thought, just as Bashir came around the table and leant down to place a halting, soft kiss to Garak’s temple.

Bashir had chosen the portion of skin above and to the left of Garak’s left eye, unremarkable and plain and so very, very sensitive now. Lips that were dry and chapped sent a lightning bolt through Garak’s skull, grazing a scaly eye ridge and lingering an age — it was only a second, surely, only a second, it could not truly be that long — as they pressed in that most foreign of human customs. Had Garak stopped breathing? Had all the Promenade stopped to stare, to comment and whisper? Bashir was mad, surely. But goodness, Garak had an unfathomable wish that this madness should continue. Then, suddenly, Bashir pulled away.

What? What was that infuriating man doing? Was this a prank, a joke, a spat of foolish misinterpretation or a deliberate choice? Before Garak could stop his mind spinning long enough to ask, Bashir was trotting off with enough speed to almost be a run. Finally cognisant, Garak could only call out at his retreating back.

“ _No_ , clear away your _mess_. Goodness, who raised you?”

To no avail. Bashir was gone.

And Garak was left, with a filthy, cluttered table, having failed in his teachings, mind gone and heart pounding —

Well. Well.

He had no idea what to do.

 


	2. Baiting a Bajoran, Step 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garak was just considering the most cutting way to tell Odo and Eddington that they’d have more luck just calling the Cardassian-Federation ambassador a parentless ingrate when Bashir flopped into the chair next to him, distracting him thoroughly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After a long (so??? long???) delay, here's the second chapter! With luck the third and final will be up in a few months once uni winds down, so keep your eyes peeled.  
> Also, as a note, I've found I love writing Kira and Garak together - and suggestions for future interactions will be swallowed like cheap candy.  
> EDIT: Wasn't fully happy with the ending for this one, so I've changed it up a bit. Worth a re-read while I finish up the third chapter.

It was early the next morning — _too_ early, if he wanted to be peevish about it — that he received the first ominous communication from Sisko.

“Mister Garak,” Sisko had said, face bland but voice holding a pinch of worry, “would you consider delaying the opening of your shop for a few hours and joining us in the wardroom?”

Garak had hummed and hawed for a few minutes while he had tried to work out _why_ Commander Sisko would want him in the wardroom, glad he was doing this already dressed and not in his pyjamas; as much as he hated mornings, it paid to be on the Promenade ahead of the crowd. And, for moments such as this, it gave the impression that he had been aware of everything and was merely waiting for it to occur, rather than uncomfortably surprised as he truly was. He was grateful for the edge it gave against an opponent like the good Captain. Many a Gul could learn from him: all he could glean from him was that there was some kind of incident with which Garak’s _unique_ insight would be...useful, if not exactly appreciated.

“I’m sure you can understand that there are some things better explained in person rather than over a comm?” Sisko had said, and, well, Garak could, which perhaps went some way to explaining why at 0800 hours he found himself staring down the indomitable Major Kira Nerys across the wardroom table as they waited for everyone else to arrive.

“My, they are taking their time, aren’t they?” Garak finally said after an indefinite period of silence. Major Kira only grunted. He was probably not going to get anything better, but, as always, he was a martyr to his own persistence.

So he tried again. “Any small clue what this is about, Major? I must confess I’m rather in the dark with what the good Commander might what, and so _early_ too.”

The Major gave him one of the smiles he knew she reserved specially for Cardassians: all sarcasm, bile, and the continuous desire to stick a knife in something. “Sure you are. Bet you haven’t got a clue.” With that she pressed her lips together, hunched down in her chair and settled in as if she were waiting out mortar fire. Which, from her perspective, any interaction with a ‘spoonhead’ probably was.

Bothering her a little more kept him entertained. Goodness knew why someone had thought to leave _her_ as the one to supervise him while the Commander did whatever it was he was doing, but her monotone grunts and snarls made him wonder if this wasn’t lesson in diplomacy for her with a soft target. Well, _softer_ target: he was hardly toothless, but chewing on an exiled old tailor, no matter who he’d once been, would hardly have dire consequences. Whereas snapping at Guls and Legates and whoever else from Cardassia she could find who enjoyed continued citizenship might alleviate a cultural hurt, but no doubt wasn’t pleasing to any Federation superiors who had to hear about it. Too concerned with appearances and politeness, if he knew the Federation at all, to appreciate the blood boiling anger of one freedom fighter cum terrorist: her Bajoran superiors, on the other hand, no doubt indulged in a round of drinks an applause whenever an incident report with her name on top of it came across their paths. Garak would, were he a Bajoran.

What an odd mental exercise, imagining himself as a Bajoran. He was just about to indulge in it further, and even prod the Major with some of the more pointed philosophising it would produce — What was the equivalent of a servant name like Garak? Who would he have been with Bajor’s mystical literature instead of Cardassia’s pragmatic one? Would he suit the earing? — when the wardroom door opened and the Major rocketed out of her seat, spared further needling.

“Commander! Thank the Prophets — I mean,” and oh, watching the Commander’s eyebrow quirk up in amusement never failed to entertain, “uh, Garak is — Mr Garak is here, sir. Waiting. We’ve been waiting. Calmly.”

“Calmly. Hm.” He turned a smile on Lieutenant Dax, entering behind him. “Thank the Prophets indeed.”

“Yes sir,” muttered the Major, and sunk back into her chair.

It seemed Sisko had brought the entirety of his senior staff to this meeting, including Odo, who gave him a restrained nod, and the Chief, who glared. Lieutenant Dax made a sauntering beeline for him, placing a hand on the back of his chair and treating him to a toothy grin.

“Raktajino, Garak? Unless Kira has already gotten you something?”

“She has not,” Garak said, and saw the Major and Sisko shoot looks at each other, one guilty and one admonishing, “we were waiting for all of you to arrive. Weren’t we Major? Rude to start a drink alone — an old little Cardassian custom, in which the Major indulged me.”

Major Kira stared at him, muttering out an agreement without thought. Putting her off kilter by appearing to help her was always a joy. It made her suspicious and angry and, he’d found from past experience, more likely to attempt her own strangled kindness out of some sense of debt.

Commander Sisko chose to raise his other eyebrow. “I’m not familiar with such a Cardassian custom. I don’t know that anyone has ever extended it to _me_.”

“Cause it doesn’t exist,” groused O’Brien, realising too late, by his face, that to take down Garak he had to take down Major Kira too. “Er, I mean, maybe.”

Garak had to stifle an unhelpful chuckle. “Generally only among the lower classes. The Guls and Legates and governmental officials _you_ deal with, Commander, wouldn’t think to observe such a courtesy.”

“You calling yourself a commoner, Garak?” Jadzia said, her smile growing larger by the second.

“Common in birth and in station, perhaps, but I hope not common in character.”

That made her laugh, and she swung off to the replicator behind him to order. A dash of almond milk, no sugar — she remembered his order perfectly. She also gave him a large snack of some sort.

“What is it?” He asked, as she sat down beside him.

“A muffin. Blueberry. Benjamin introduced me to it. It’s nice, you’ll like it.”

“Benjamin,” the Commander said, interjecting forcefully, “wants to start this meeting.”

“Of course Commander, sorry.”

Garak wanted to ask what on earth went into a _muffin_ , but the look of impatience on Commander Sisko’s face told him that he should simply eat the thing and be thankful. The first nibble was sweet, like most Terran snack foods, and Garak was pleased to note Jadzia was right — he did like it.

“Where’s Doctor Bashir?” Major Kira asked as Garak took a larger bite.

Chief O’Brien huffed. “He said he’d be five minutes. Something about some protein sequencing —”

“He’ll get here when he gets here,” Sisko said, and slid several padds across the table to everyone. “In the meantime, let’s begin.”

It was much as Garak expected: the Federation wanted something from Cardassia, and for their part in it the command of DS9 decided that inquiring of their local _tailor_ was their best course of action. Nevermind that he couldn’t exactly speak for Cardassia, or that he had any opinion on Dukat’s latest noise-making that he was willing to share apart from _what a fool_. Not that Dukat had actually come up yet, but Garak could tell he will from the fury on Major Kira’s face and what the Commander wasn’t saying — and, of course, from his own sources, which confirmed the inevitability of it all. Dukat had tried to throw his political weight around, and doubtless the Federation wanted to know if next time he might throw it in a direction they might like.

Sisko appeared to be about to get to the crux of the matter when Doctor Bashir burst in, panting and red-faced. It had been much longer than five minutes.

“Sorry,” he said, bent double, “sorry, there was an emergency, thought it was an outbreak, I got here as fast as I could, turned out to just be —”

“Just sit down, Doctor,” Sisko said, motioning to a chair, any chair, stop talking and sit down, please.

“Of course, of course, I’ll just grab something from the the replicator —”

“Very well Doctor, just don’t dawdle.”

Bashir blushed, but did his best to quietly order something from the replicator while Odo and Eddington argued over the usefulness of secure channels. Pointless, really. As if someone like Dukat would have worked to secure his end in any meaningful way: they could open up what they thought was a secure channel, but Dukat’s poor care for the more technical details of secrecy would have the Obsidian Order listening in from the get-go. Within an hour Central Command would know they’d contacted Dukat, Sisko would receive an angry communique, they’d have to kiss up and shake hands with a dozen jumped up Legates, and in the end do double the work for half the reward, because by that point Dukat would have grown scared and would probably rather break up his one-sided nemesis affair with Sisko rather than annoy Central Command further.

Garak was just considering the most cutting way to tell Odo and Eddington that they’d have more luck just calling the Cardassian-Federation ambassador a parentless ingrate when Bashir flopped into the chair next to him, distracting him thoroughly. The pair of security experts got through a new round of arguing about data encryption as Garak watched Bashir burn his tongue on his fresh tarkalean tea. Watching Bashir cough his through his pain got Garak through a tedious spiel by O’Brien on Cardassian communication protocols, and observing Bashir navigate some manner of sloppy pastry made Major Kira’s anecdote on ‘how they did that all the time in the resistance’ more bearable, at which point Bashir’s eyes jolted up to his. The delightful man gifted him with a grin, forgetting that his mouth was full of pastry, and looked unbelievably shocked when some of it dropped out and back onto the plate.

“Really, Doctor,” Garak couldn’t help but mutter. Bashir looked set to start giggling, so it was probably a good thing that Sisko interrupted.

“Mr Garak, you’ve been quiet so far. Anything to add?”

“Oh no, Commander, nothing of note. Although...I am wondering what you asked me here for. I’m hardly an expert on Federation security protocols,” he said, nodding at Eddington and Odo to indicate their previous discussion.

“Then it’s a good thing we’ve not got you here to discuss that,” Sisko said, “but to offer Cardassian insight on the latest Cardassian happenings.”

“Which are?”

Major Kira scoffed. “Oh, come on, you probably know more than we do!”

“I confess I don’t.” He probably did.

“The mess with Dukat!” She looked astonished that he might deny knowledge of it, and, well, he could see her logic. She knew he hated Dukat as much as she did.

What was that Terran saying, keep your friends close...and information was as good as flesh to a man like him.

“Which mess with Dukat?” He asked, “I’ve no doubt there are new messes each morning.”

“He bullied his way around a section near the Badlands, making a racket about how great Cardassian sovereignty is.” The Major looked disgusted at the thought.

Sisko sighed. “He was involved in a series of incidents with the Marquis and the Klingons, some of them fatal —”

Garak can’t help his little interjection. “To him, one hopes?”

Major Kira shared a brief — and quickly regretted — look of commiseration with him, but Sisko predictably just scowled. “No. It was not. But he began broadcasting from his fleet about how no-one would rule Cardassia but Cardassia. Of course, with the Marquis violent interactions feel almost inevitable at this point, but that’s not the case with the Klingons. He might start a war out there, the way he’s going.”

How delightful to be right. “And you want it to be the _correct_ war, I take it? One not with the Klingons, or preferably with anyone else within the Alpha quadrant, but, if possible, with those beyond it?”

Sisko nodded. “The Dominion. Every fight that happens here, between ourselves, weakens us a gives the Dominion an opening we cannot afford to give. If we can get even one Gul on our side, we have a good chance of convincing more, and then —”

“Central Command.” Plodding the wider Federation might be, but Garak had to admire the drive of people like Sisko.

“Yes. You can see now why we invited you to this little meeting, Mr Garak.”

“Oh yes. And luckily for you, though your methods...may need work, I fully agree with your aims.”

O’Brien laughed. “You’re willing to convince some Cardies to lay off the Klingons for us?”

“Like you, Chief, I am forever a loyal patriot.”

They spent the next half an hour mulling over ways to get Dukat to do what they want — Garak’s suggestion of having Major Kira shout at him was firmly shut down — without ruining the tenuous relations between the Federation, Bajor and Central Command. Garak was also unable to convince them to go directly to Central Command itself, despite the obvious advantages, although he was loath to admit they might have a point. Central Command did have a history of gauging the ramification of wide reaching political decisions like this by the reaction of Guls to the idea: where Legates moved with power Guls moved with people, the saying went, being closer to the rank and file and more cognizant of how an idea might actually play out in practice among citizens and soldiers both. So, if they could get even a _handful_ of Guls to voice their idea, they’d be much better prepared to then go to Central Command with a proposal. It was no guarantee, of course — sometimes it didn’t matter what the Guls thought, Central Command would do what they wished regardless and demand compliance — but it was a potential point in their favour.

In the end, Garak agreed to looking up some information, a few old contacts, and drafting a message and its delivery system to send to Dukat without the Obsidian Order knowing. Major Kira was predictably snide about the last bit. It was 9.30 Bajoran Central Time when Sisko finally called an end to the meeting, and the first transports would be coming in from the eastern continent; high time for Garak to be in his shop, fielding inquiries, deliveries, and the occasional uniformed newcomer come to gawk. He was about to pull himself out of his chair — a terrible designed one, he’d decided, the Federation style not at all suited for Cardassian back scales — when Bashir placed a hurried hand upon his arm.

“Garak,” he said, a sly and pleading expression upon his face, “I don’t suppose there is anything I could help with?”

Bashir spoke just as Sisko was leaving, his Chief and two security officers trailing behind him like squabbling chicks. Sisko’s eyes flickered between Garak and Bashir, the hand on Garak’s arm, Sisko’s jaw locked but mouth titled in an unwilling smile _._ Bashir had done little in the actual meeting save jiggle an excitable leg whenever Garak spoke, but perhaps Bashir hadn’t been called for that — and how odd it was, for a CMO to be called to a meeting of diplomacy and war — but for this moment afterward. _Ah, yes_ , Sisko’s expression seemed to say, _this old dance._

Garak couldn’t help but agree. Ah, yes. The Doctor’s indomitable desire to be involved in anything even slightly resembling espionage. It had started out half a joke, so long ago — who else in the senior staff would have been so ready to be pulled into his shadow, so pleasingly eager — but despite Bashir’s arguably childlike regard for the profession, he was actually gaining some skill in it. Not in deception, perhaps, or in the apathetic pragmatism needed for more unpleasant decisions. But to Garak’s great pleasure, Bashir had demonstrated a mind as sharp and steady as any Cardassian’s when it was properly applied. Certainly of use in what Garak needed now.

“Ah,” he said, allowing a slow smile to slip like silk across his features, “perhaps, Doctor, perhaps. We must move delicately, at the moment, allowing nothing to indicate our interest in such matters. Our foes view is clear, while ours is veiled. So we must —”

“You’re going to have me doing research!”

Ah, blast. Garak had been hoping to build it up a bit more. Bashir pulled back in affront, casting his gaze about the room as if to find someone to share in this indignity.

“If you can’t put yourself to the task of a little information gathering, Doctor, something so simple, then I don’t know what other task you expect me to give you.” Garak made sure to frown with appropriate severity.

“Well,” Bashir shuffled in his seat, tone trying to pull at him like a hook at a fish, “what are you going to be doing? Saving all the fun bits of work for yourself while I do the menial labour?”

And here it was, that childlike view: how long before the good Doctor realised _fun_ and _adrenaline soaked highs_ were not quite the same thing, and that he was much more likely to experience the latter than the former in this line of work? Garak tutted, and found himself very tempted to simply leave, and let Bashir stew in rejection. But, as his...as certain people used to say, ‘sometimes harsh, and sometimes soft, to teach a student well’. It had been a while since they’d had any ‘adventures’, as Bashir was wont to call them. It was entirely possible he was simply pining.

“Yes, _fun_ , of course, I had quite forgotten the quiet joy of _preventing a war_.” Goodness, but Garak was getting soft in his old age.

The face before him twisted, if only slightly. “So...you’re _not_ holding back.”

“No. I realise caution is in my nature,” he said, and generously ignored Bashir’s snort, “but I am applying that caution to _both_ of us. It would be a most terrible shame if you were injured because I refused to make us prepare. I should be most distraught.”

“Ah,” Bashir said, “yes, a most terrible shame.” The emphasis on the on the last few words was heavy, not quite sarcastic: his lips quirked at the corners in the manner of a sarcastic smile, but his brows were creased, his hands clenched together.

“Are you quite alright Doctor?”

“What? Oh! Yes! Fine.”

A lie, but he was late already to open his shop, and it seemed a small lie at best. So he merely raised a brow. “Very well. To your task, then. There is nothing else to be done now but research.”

“No interesting leads,” Bashir said, pouting, of all things.

“No,” Garak said, and then, because he was the softest, most easily-swayed man this side of the wormhole, added, “not yet at least, my dear Doctor.”

Bashir gave a radiant smile at that — at the _not yet_ , at the _my dear Doctor_ , at Garak’s conspiring tone — and Garak found himself momentarily undone. Shaken like a spinning top, brain stuttering and titled until all of him feels off kilter. No more than some residual foolishness, he told himself, but it meant he was hardly paying attention to anything more than his own achingly wide smile when Bashir hopped up and made to leave. Hardly paying attention to the words lining up to leave his mouth either, so, seeing Bashir was set to leave him and his empty mug and plate, on the table, abandoned, again, instead of saying anything _remotely_ clear he said;

“Doctor, really, your memory must be suffering terribly for you to do this to me two times in a week.”

Bashir turned to him with a look like — what was the archaic Terran phrase — deer caught in the headlights? “I didn’t realise I owed you another one,” he said, bashful for some reason.

What a funny way of looking at things. A remote part of Garak’s mind was still twirling, on a delightful, anxious high. He couldn’t spare the thought to parse what Bashir might mean.

“It is not about what you owe me, Doctor, but about what is right.”

He fixed Bashir with a pointed look. Bashir shrugged, grinned, and Garak’s mind wobbled. The dull black of his uniform seemed to highlight his lanky figure, how he towered over Garak now, even just halfway out of his chair. He bumbled over, still grinning, and leant down. Garak had a moment to think that finally, he was learning some niceties, when Bashir bypassed his mess and pushed himself fully in Garak’s space. It took a second, only a second, Garak would later swear, but watching Bashir place a hand on the table for balance and smoothly duck his head to place a soft, chaste kiss on Garak’s cheek felt like the slow slip of a glacier.

Garak’s senses were stuck in a tailspin long enough that his exasperated yell was said not to Bashir’s face but to his back as it disappeared out the door. “For _goodness sake_ , that is _not what I meant_.”

There was a heady beat of silence, and then he remembered that they hadn’t been alone.

Major Kira was sat across from him, her cup frozen halfway to her lips. She looked like she’d just seen Bashir kiss a vole, and was just about ready to slaughter the vole in question. Jadzia, beside him, stifled a laugh with her fist.

“What,” Major Kira said, voice dripping venom, “was that?”

The laugh she’d been denying finally burst from Jadzia’s mouth. “What did it look like?”

“I _know_ what it _looked like_! That’s not what I’m asking. Garak?”

Garak had no clue — well, he had a _clue_ but not a _conclusion_ — and it was beyond frustrating. “No doubt some strange human feint in order to avoid cleaning up after himself.” Determined to avoid looking into the Major’s eye — he may be able to dance verbal circles around her, but the woman’s fire could be distracting — he stood and began to gather his and the Doctor’s empty items together. “I mean, look at this! You would think a grown man would have learnt by now that he should not rely on others to do something for him so simple as putting a cup and plate back into the replicator.”

That seemed to have confounded Major Kira for a moment. “What? What are you talking about?”

“He _is_ messy,” Dax said, “but what has that got to do with him _kissing_ you, Garak?”

Garak placed the items back into the replicator with a care he did not feel. “This is twice he’s done this now. I do hope it isn’t indicative of it becoming a habit.”

“Done this twice? Kissed you _twice?_ ” Kira sounded outraged, out of proportion with the situation, Garak thought. But then, she so often did.

“Ignored my admonishments and used odd tactics to flee without putting away his rubbish. _That_ is what he has done twice.”

“Did each time involve kissing you?” Jadzia said, mischief clear in the line of her mouth.

“Why would he _kiss_ you?” Major Kira said.

Tired of her accusatory manner — sometimes it could be fun, but only if he held enough of the cards — he stared her down. “I was hoping you could tell me, Major. I would think the two of you would be more familiar with the good Doctor’s pranks than I. He has never dared try one on me.”

Like some of his best lines, he hadn’t known what he was going to say until it was already out. The wind had momentarily been knocked from the Major’s sails, and Dax was looking at him in contemplation. Garak knew the Doctor had an impish nature, one that Dax shared, and he had heard on a few occasions of the trouble they had gotten into; sometimes separately, sometimes together. Poking at it might allow him an exit.

Major Kira, magnificently, attempted to rally. “What, you mean he wouldn’t prank a spy?”

Garak made sure to blink slowly, in the way he knew she hated. “I have no idea whether he would prank a spy! I shall have to ask him. Perhaps we can find one and he can have a go. But,” he continued, and Major Kira ground her teeth, “I imagine he has never pranked _me_ out of a healthy respect for his elders and betters. Then again I could be unwittingly transposing Cardassian values onto him.”

“Could be,” said Major Kira.

“Entirely possible,” he demurred, moving towards the door. “Now if you ladies would excuse me,” he said, and managed to be partway down the corridor before he heard Major Kira’s inevitable shouting.


	3. They would have made a lovely Gul, Agent, Cardassian.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unsmiling laugh spilt from Kira’s mouth, but whatever rejoinder she was concocting was lost as a figure bounced over from the newly appeared turbo lift and threw themselves with ill grace into the chair to Garak’s right. It was, of course, Bashir – Garak would recognise that gait anywhere – who let loose a joyous hello and got back to the important business of drinking his tea.
> 
> Opposite Garak, Jadzia suddenly, inexplicably laughed. She wouldn’t meet Garak’s eyes when he looked.

It had been just under a week since the strange meeting in the wardroom, and Garak had received a few curt follow-up messages from Commander Sisko (a delight to navigate), a near deluge from Doctor Bashir (quite endearing, but normal), and a singular one from Odo (a stern reminder of all the areas of the station’s systems he _wasn’t_ allowed into). Beyond that, there’d been a near silence on the matter of his investigations, something which had surprised him. The Federation had hardly had a stellar reputation among the other galactic powers for...subtlety. Certainly that had been true in his own experiences: whenever he’d crossed paths with Federation intelligence agents, they’d been clever enough, but also crude and unimaginative in their methods. An agent of the Order with less than five years field work under their belt could tell a Federation patsy by their smile. This current, _unexpected_ competence came no doubt from a mixture of the Commander’s ironclad pokerface — which no few of his subordinates had tried to emulate — and Major Kira’s vast experience with keeping things out of the notice of Cardassians. Himself included, apparently.

The period of silence was over, however: he had taken his customary afternoon break to find a communique waiting for him on the terminal he kept in the backroom of his store, a short request from Commander Sisko to come to Ops as soon as he closed up his store for the day. Closing time could be as late as he wanted, although he tended to time it before the evening service in the Promenade Shrine. Getting caught up in the Bajoran crowd on their way to worship was no decent place to be. So at a quarter to seven, just as the vedyk and her prylars were lighting the incense outside the shrine, Garak walked briskly across the Promenade and into a turbolift, hoping someone had remembered to give him clearance. It would hardly do to get stuck in a turbolift partway there because the computer thought him an intruder.

Thankfully some nameless ensign had done their job, and he emerged into Ops with no more trouble than that provided by a half-hearted glare from O’Brien, down in the pit. Garak, unable to immediately see Commander Sisko in the vicinity, decided to make a point of talking to the Chief.

“Ah, Chief O’Brien,” Garak said, affecting a smile far too wide and waiting for the Chief’s eye-roll to finish. “Is the Commander in his office?”

O’Brien, manner as gruff as it ever was when having to interact with Cardassians, at least did him the courtesy of looking at him when he replied. “He is, but the Major’s also in there at the moment. I’d wait here if I were you. I’ll,” and here Chief O’Brien sighed, obviously already regretting doing anything that might be viewed as a favour, “I’ll let him know you’re here.”

Garak could hardly resist twisting the knife. “Thank you, Chief! That would be most appreciated. And when you say, wait in here, where precisely…” He waved a hand to encompass all of Ops within his indecisiveness.

“Just, just go over there.” He pointed to the central command table, which always had a few spare chairs, spare stations, and even chairs with stations.

“Over here?” Garak pointed off to the side, very definitely and deliberately away from where the Chief had.

“No, not there, _there_.”

“Oh, there! But Ensign D’Sa is at that station —”

“No, gods sake Garak, I’m —” And with that O’Brien climbed out of the pit, took Garak rather forcefully by the elbow and walked him the two feet to the command table, where he proceeded to pull out a chair for Garak with a smile that could cut throats. “Here you go Garak.” His words moved past his teeth like they’d been soaked in sarcasm for a few days. “Why don’t you sit here. Right. In. This. Chair.”

He’d deny it under even the fiercest interrogation, but Garak was inordinately fond of O’Brien. Whether that was due to or despite the man’s infuriating honesty was hard to say. But he did so terribly enjoy needling his (possibly quite justified) automatic and palpable resentment of every Cardassian he met. His interaction with Rugal all those years ago — the conflict between his paradigm for _Cardassian_ and _child_ — had been especially entertaining.

“Thank you, Chief. A pleasure to talk to you as always.” A perfectly sincere statement, and so, coming as it was out of his mouth and tumbling into O’Brien’s ears, bound to sound like the most obtuse fallacy.

O’Brien muttered something that may have passed for _you’re welcome_ if Garak was inclined to be generous: he decided he was, and let O’Brien wander back to the pit without further comment. O’Brien activated his comm briefly, speaking through it in a quiet susurrus that Garak could only assume was a brief message to Commander Sisko about his presence. Ambiguous as it was when Sisko would be free, Garak pulled a padd out of an inside pocket and set to reading a book he kept for just such an occasion. Ops bustled around him, and were he a normal kind of person he might have found himself lost in the words of his book and the familiarity of jury-rigged Cardassian tech. As it was, he wasn’t, so he knew he’d had precisely five minutes and nineteen seconds of pleasant reading (and six minutes and two seconds of observation by the cohort in Ops) when Sisko walked out of his office and swept his gaze over his people.

“Garak,” he said, gliding down the stairs with the Major appearing at his back, “glad to see you could make it. My apologies for the delay.”

“No trouble at all Commander, I was able to keep myself entertained.”

Pleasantries over, they seated themselves around the command table, Commander Sisko taking the head and Major Kira sitting without hesitation just to his right. She was perfectly placed: being on the same side of the table as Garak, she could observe him from her periphery without being obvious, and were he to try and do something foolish she would stand between him and her superior. Garak couldn’t say with certainty whether it was down to her training within Bajor’s resistance or within its military, but that was largely beside the point. The Major never failed to impress. She would have made an exquisite Cardassian operative.

“We’re just waiting for the others to arrive.” She said, the veneer of politeness about her.

“Of course.” Garak said. He imagined that once they did, they’d remove themselves somewhere more secure, but he wasn’t in a mood to wait. From a pocket he produced a spare padd, which he passed to Major Kira for her inspection: an attempt to pass it straight to the Commander would earn him suspicious looks and a slapped wrist, or, at least, the diplomatic equivalent.

“My report,” he told her when she stared between him and the padd. “I hardly thought it worth more than a few lines, and so it seemed a more efficient use of everyone’s time if you could peruse it at your leisure, rather than wait around for everyone else to finish what I’m sure shall be valuable contributions before I can give my own small piece.”

“Your efficiency is noted,” Kira said, taking the padd from him with an iron grip. She made to hand it off to Sisko when the lift appeared and disgorged several passengers, Lieutenant Dax among them.

With a grin and a wink for Garak and a wave for everyone else, Dax was in an informal mood. “Hey Benjamin, I’ve been looking for you.”

“What for old man? One second,” Sisko said as Dax took an exaggerated breath to launch into what Garak suspected was going to be a jargon laden spiel, “Major, take a look over the information Mr Garak have given us. I know you know what to look for.”

Some nods, some rearrangement of data pads and some light-hearted joking, and Dax was sat walking Sisko through whatever station-wide calamity or glorious scientific breakthrough she’d met with today, and Major Kira was frowning at Garak’s report.

“I trust all is in order? I have other business to attend to if so.”

Shooting him a glance, lips pursed, Major Kira held up a hand. “One moment Garak. Let me at least skim over it first.”

Garak resigned himself to more time spent up here than he’d hoped for. Major Kira was notoriously thorough, and notoriously effacing, with her reviews of intel. There was little chance he’d leave uncritiqued.

“Garak,” she said, taking a second to work out exactly how close she needed to be to him versus how close she _wanted_ to be, “this line here. I’m as much as fan of hyperbole as the next person who has to answer to exacting, accuracy focused superiors, but when you say _catastrophic_ –”

“Well, Major,” he began, and found himself delving into a deep technical debate while Dax kept the attention of the room on her with a dissection of the matter-antimatter experiments in laboratory five. Talking business with someone who, for all intents and purposes, shared a common work history, was more enjoyable than he would ever say to the Major’s face. Or indeed to her back, in her general vicinity, and possibly while still within the same galactic quadrant. All the same he wished he could spare an ear for Jadzia’s entertainment extravaganza. While he and the Major had been talking shop, she’d moved on to the progress of the visiting academics from Rigel VI. Things were, he gathered, a mess. Dax looked delighted at the fact.

“So you see my point about Gul Ronal,” Garak said sotto voice – just because the Major was confident of everyone in the room didn’t mean he was – trying somewhat futilely to draw the conversation to a close.

Major Kira huffed and drew her shoulders closer to her ears. “I _see_ your point, I just don’t like it.”

“Does anyone?”

An unsmiling laugh spilt from Kira’s mouth, but whatever rejoinder she was concocting was lost as a figure bounced over from the newly appeared turbo lift and threw themselves with ill grace into the chair to Garak’s right. It was, of course, Bashir – Garak would recognise that gait anywhere – who let loose a joyous hello and got back to the important business of drinking his tea.

Opposite Garak, Jadzia suddenly, inexplicably laughed. She wouldn’t meet Garak’s eyes when he looked.

“Hello to you too, my dear Doctor. I wasn’t aware you were going to be up here.”

Bashir shrugged, full bodied and with teacup in hand, just avoiding throwing the liquid on the table. “Biweekly report on the Infirmary, you know. Handing over a padd, dashing off again, nice and quick.”

“Famous last words, Doctor. I thought I was to be ‘nice and quick’, and yet here I am some thirty minutes later.”

“It’s a good thing,” Kira said, cutting across Bashir’s attempt to reply, her brows high, eyes bright, and smile as wide as a bat’leth “that Doctor Bashir is here to give a report on routine matters, and not highly sensitive ones that may be pertinent to a galactic war. Means I can read his report in my sleep. Means I don’t _have_ to pull teeth for thirty minutes.”

Garak was always pleased when the Major descended into sarcasm: it allowed for the most exaggerated reactions. “I should hope not, Major! Imagine what the good Doctor would look like with a mouth full of gums!”

Kira’s nose creased in on itself. “That’s not what I –”

Jadzia interrupted, her hair swinging forward over a shoulder. “Why do you always call him ‘Doctor’, or ‘my dear’, or ‘Doctor Bashir’, but never ‘Julian’?”

Beneath carefully chosen layers of clothes, Garak could feel his scales twitch. Taking a breath shallow enough not to arouse suspicion, but deep enough to re-establish equilibrium, he considered what answer he would give this time to a question he’d heard a variation of on and off for years: why were forenames such an anathema to him? And, a caveat only for himself, why was the question causing such a particular reaction in him now?

“It is a matter of respect,” he began, and considered it a reasonable beginning in that it was largely true and that he’d not noticeably hesitated. “Cardassians as a rule refer to no-one by first names save the closest of family. It implies an intimacy of emotion hardly suitable for the wider population. You use titles, or surnames. Both if possible.”

“Huh,” Jadzia said, while beside him Major Kira shrugged in vague confirmation and Bashir hid a smirk behind his tea. “Then why does Gul Dukat call everyone by their first names? Are you sure this isn’t a _Cardassian_ thing so much as a _Garak_ thing?”

“Gul Dukat hasn’t the manners the universe gave a rock. He is very much the exception, not the rule, and you should _never_ take him as indicative of Cardassians as a whole. The very idea! That we should be represented by a man with no shame and such microscopic levels of honour. Why, I should think –”

“Alright, alright! I get it!” Jadzia pursed her lips together, the edges twitching, and waved her hands between them as if to wash the sudden tension away. “Sorry, I won’t make that mistake again. Damn.” She took a breath, eyes shining, and reached across the table to pat him in commiseration on his arm. “I forget, sometimes, how much you hate him.”

“The only sensible reaction to have to Dukat is hate,” Kira interjected, pausing as Commander Sisko murmured a token reprimand. “Sorry sir, but Garak isn’t wrong. He’s too…familiar.”

Struck again by the number of superficial similarities between Cardassian and Bajoran culture – how often did anyone at this table call her ‘Nerys’ rather than ‘Kira’, he wondered – Garak gave the Major an agreeable nod. She squinted at him in response.

Sisko waved a hand for Garak’s report, clutched tightly in Kira’s hands, and nodded to them all. “As uncomfortable as he may be – and I’m not saying any of you are wrong – such talk is for private moments. We represent Bajor and the Federation, and may have to represent them to him. I’d like to do so with civility. That includes free agents and contractors, Mr Garak.”

A warning, from a man renowned for following through on them, but given with a slip of a smile. Garak was struck again at how fine of a commanding officer Sisko was, how fine a Gul he might have made. In the lull following, Sisko collected a handful of other reports, including the one Bashir had brought. Why his dear Doctor couldn’t have simply submitted it to the internal system and saved himself a trip, Garak couldn’t say – though he had a few guesses – but he was never one to bemoan a chance to glimpse his face.

Beneath his jacket and a benign smile, his scales rustled again.

“Well, that’s me done.” Bashir said, standing, clapping a friendly hand to Garak’s upper arm. “I’ll see you all later.”

His chair scraped quietly against the floor, pushed back without any elegance by the sheer force of his thighs, his giraffe frame teetering. Stepping away, his eyes dashed over and around Garak, and every time his gaze caught itself in a Cardassian orbit his razor-sharp smile softened. Garak felt incapable of doing anything except holding a level gaze. At least until Bashir turned his back. Then, in reorienting himself without the distraction that was Bashir ( _without the sun_ , he thought briefly, and quashed the notion), he locked eyes with Kira; lips a thin line, eyebrows pulled tight, nails tapping a staccato beat against the table. At the same moment as she looked down, he realised what it was that was teasing him in his periphery.

A teacup. Just in front of Bashir’s vacated seat.

“Prophets,” he heard Kira curse, and knew she was waiting for him to notice. Knew she then glared across the table, at the pointed silence, at Jadzia’s teeth-baring smile.

Garak was, at this point, sorely tempted to believe his dear Doctor had been engaging in a deliberate plot rather than accidental ineptitude. He surely couldn’t be so – so _scatter-brained_ , so _obtuse_? Three times in a week? All in Garak’s presence? All _precisely_ the same infraction? Coincidences might exist, true, but Garak would be pushing the bounds of foolishness to consider this one. It was enough to get him to consider tactics, long-term plans: should he fill Bashir’s quarters with tea mugs, write riddles to which all the answers were a variation upon _cleanliness_ , persuade his medical staff to act as a glorified external reminder? Were there some distance between him and the cause of his frustration, _any distance_ , he might have taken the time to consider his options, to consider why Bashir might be doing this deliberately. But Bashir was less than ten seconds out of his chair, and Garak could feel the words piling up behind his teeth. So consider he didn’t.

“Doctor,” he said, a single word sharp with rebuke, and watched as Bashir swivelled to face him instantly. “Your continued insistence on forgetting this will drive me to distraction.” He followed with a put-upon sigh, a hand gesturing flatly to the abandoned teacup. “What kind of meaning am I to take from you ignoring me like this?”

Bashir frowned, soft and confused. “You really are focused on this, aren’t you? Is this some Cardassian thing? Do I have to do it a certain number of times for you to be satisfied?”

Whether Bashir was engineering this deliberately or not, that was too perfect an opening for to not automatically respond. Garak smiled, showing teeth, and made sure to look Bashir straight in the eye.

“My dear Doctor, I shall not be satisfied unless you do it _every_ time.”

There. He’d laid down his cards, as it were, made himself as clear as could be. Now it was Bashir’s move.

Bashir’s shoulders shrugged casually into an apology, his eyes wide and mouth in that easy half smile that together made such a quintessential Bashir look; mild bemusement, both unoffended and unoffensive, eons from panic and not so sure, really, that anything could be quite _that_ bad. Around him, Garak heard the minute scratching of Major Kira’s nails upon the command table, Jadzia’s strangled breathing, and a quiet but heartfelt _bloody hell_ from the Chief. Eyes peeked from surrounding workstations, and though the _tap-tap_ of fingers on screens continued it was dulled, diluted in the air as all focus shifted. In the intestinal pause between his challenge and Bashir’s response, everyone was taking a moment to breathe and watch the drama.

Exactly the kind of delightful scenario Garak lived for. A guilty indulgence, were he inclined to feel guilt about such frivolities.

The room breathed out, and Bashir took a step forward. “If you insist Garak. I am loath to deny you anything.”

A strange thing to say, as Bashir denied him things all the time and with great enjoyment. Their discussions would be rather flat without it. Bashir’s lanky frame came to rest an inch from Garak, Bashir taking the chance to push his chair in and place a hand on the back of Garak’s own. Obviously he was milking the moment, creating the greatest pomp he reasonably could. Acutely aware of how painful the angle would soon become, Garak nevertheless kept eye contact. To break it now would mean conceding something, he was sure, though he couldn’t say what. It was atrocious how little he was thinking through things. How much their little game was currently slipping out of his grasp.

Get on with it, Garak thought, hand starting to twitch. It brushed Bashir’s leg, the unpleasant texture scratching across the sensitive scales, and Garak gripped it briefly before pulling back. Above him, before him, Bashir gave no sign of noticing the slip. He merely bent forward.

As prepared for it as he might have been, Garak was nonetheless entirely still as his world shrunk down to Bashir’s bemused face, moving closer to his. Again, again, _again._ How was he falling for this a third time? Fool me once, Julian Bashir, fool me twice, fool me trice…

The kiss, when it came, was a thunderstrike upon his skin. A firm press of lips at the corner of his mouth, the tentative touches of days past vanished. He could feel Bashir’s nose glancing his cheek, his hair touching against flushing scacles. Garak found himself turning his face towards Bashir. His own lips now brushed beautiful skin, his eyes fluttering closed without his permission. The heat and smell of Bashir curled in the back of his mouth, and he took another breath so as to hold it there a little longer. And in the midst of all of those sensations, long, delicate fingers pushed at his wrist where it sat on the table, sliding like silk past the cuff of his sleeve and pushing under his hand, turning it over and demanding, grasping, fingers entwined and palm pressed to palm. Their tangled hands were going to sink into the table, he would swear it, and pull them both down after.

A Cardassian kiss. A Cardassian _caress_ , their hands a point of rapture, as blatant as two humans locking lips, as deliberate; it must be, with Julian’s other hand remaining so carefully on the back of the chair, refraining from touching Garak’s shoulder or face in a more traditional human manner. A sign. Julian knew _exactly_ what he was doing.

At least…did he know he was doing it in front of the entirety of station command?

As soon as the question dropped into his head, Bashir pulled back, and like with a cold front on the coast, Garak had the uncanny sensation of staring into the deeps and waiting for a storm to hit. With any luck, he’d avoid questions from Sisko and laughter from Jadzia, because Major Kira would just kill him outright. He wouldn’t hold it against her. It would be a perfectly reasonable reaction.

There was a deep inhale behind him. “WHAT.” She said, and, yes, Garak’s death was staring him in the face. Or at least staring at his back, as the Major prepared to continue yelling. Down in the pit, Chief O’Brien had already dropped all his equipment and was partway through a litany of creative curses mentioning Garak’s heritage, the Prophets, and mandatory cultural awareness seminars. Dax had a grin that he could _feel_. She would be living off this tale for weeks.

Kira continued. “WHAT the HELL.”

“Ah,” Garak began, searching for anything he could possibly say, only for Bashir’s slow removal to become a speedy retreat. Bashir spun a quarter turn, facing the table, hummed to himself, tapped a foot, and with a nonchalance that Garak was proud of reached down and scooped up his empty teacup. It was in the replicator and gone in a second. The sight of him, damn the man, the _sight_ of him. Nothing short of beauty: lips loosing the fight not to rise at the corners, going from polite to smug; fingers shaking where they’re clutching at his hips; stance wide but feet tapping, reading to dither, ready to run; and his eyes, alive and bright as any sun, fixed on Garak. Garak would paint it himself, had he the talent. Sketch it out in charcoal in a silent, solitary room.

Julian cleared his throat. “There you go Garak. Just as you wanted.” Garak’s own lips twitched upwards, and Julian caught it, eyes flicking doward. Julian nodded. Then, well…

Garak affected a weak look of surprise. “Well that’s one way to learn,” he said, watching with pleasure as O’Brien’s yelling followed Julian down the turbolift. Now all he had to do was navigate the fallout. O’Brien alone looked like he wanted to stab Garak with a phase inducer. “Do you know,” Garak said, “I’ve _still_ no idea why he keeps doing that.” He shared a conspiratorial glance with Dax, who was valiantly maintaining her composure.

“At least he put away his dirty things this time.” She said.

“True, true.” He began to gather up his own things, lest he had to make a swift exit. The glare from Major Kira promised murder. He wasn’t sure he’d welcome it anymore.

“So,” Sisko said, “I take it congratulations are _not_ in order?”

Garak shrugged. “Oh, no. Not unless you would like to congratulate me for _finally_ training Doctor Bashir to clean up after himself. I admit that has been a trial.”

“You should celebrate,” Dax suggested, ignoring the incredulous looks from her peers. “It’s been a long time coming.”

It had? Since when? He…good gracious, he was seriously out of practice if Julian – if Bashir – no, no, call a spade a spade, as _Julian_ might say – if _Julian_ was pulling the wool over his eyes like this. To say it was news to him would be an understatement so severe even Garak would hesitate to class it a truth. More a revelation, were he comfortable picking any word at all. _It’s been a long time coming_. Had it now? Had it really? How curious.

How… _wonderful_.

Sisko eyeballed the both of them, expression as measured and firm as it always was in front of Garak. “Perhaps later. Mr Garak still has to finish his discussion with Major Kira. Kira?”

Kira gave a brief outburst, and everyone could clearly hear O’Brien muttering off to one side. But Sikso glared them down into submission. They acquiesced. Garak would have felt some vindication, but he knew it was not for his benefit. Besides, it was almost certain that he would have to endure that glare himself before the day was out, unless he was very lucky.

Not that he believed in luck. But with his hand holding residual warmth where he was now clenching it on his thigh, he felt he should probably start believing in something.


	4. All the Diligence Displayed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why my dear Julian,” he said, and had the pleasure of watching Julian erupt from the box he was inspecting, gazelle limbs whipping every-which-way.
> 
> “Garak! What on earth are you doing here?”
> 
> “Is that any way to greet your…friend?” Julian began to splutter in the pause, and would have continued, lips contorting around a dozen competing responses, but Garak spoke over his attempts. “More to the point, Julian, how do you think it makes me feel, that my repeated instructions to you are repeatedly ignored?”

The rota for the station’s medical staff proved a terribly dull thing to hack into, no challenge at all, and Garak resolved that when this was over he was going to have a word or two with Odo about improving security for the computer systems. Afterward he’d almost talked himself into infiltrating other areas, just to see if he could: medical and personnel records, door codes, interior maps, and so on. It had taken a great strength of will to stop, and consider that he was distracting himself from something exceptionally more important. From why he’d looked into the rota in the first place.

Goodness, he was becoming such a coward in his autumn years. Pedantic too. A rota was hardly necessary to tell him what he already knew: Julian’s schedule, which he’d memorised five weeks ago after a few minor changes had prompted Julian to discuss it with him, worried as his dear Doctor was about it effecting their lunches. He’d had the previous version memorised too, and the one before that, and the one before that, and –

Really, _a long time coming_. How right Jadzia was.

Julian’s shift today ended at 14.30 hours, just as Garak knew it would. Shut up shop at 14.00 hours, giving him time for clean-up and for any surprises, and he’d be able to catch Julian in the Infirmary just before he left. Garak was tempted to wait until later, when Julian would usually be home, but that _usually_ kept teasing at him – too much chance for something to change, for him to vanish somewhere, to be abducted by his friends – so a public walk along the Promenade to the _very_ public and utterly unsecure location of the Infirmary was what he was left with. The thought of resolving this where _anyone_ might see, be they staff, locals, or fresh of a transport, sent a shiver through him. Public flirting was well enough. A genteel argument in the replimat raised no eyebrows, few if any knowing what it meant, and so was perfectly safe. But anything more?

He pursed his lips, considering consequences. He was well enough tolerated now by station residents and Starfleet officials that so long as he broke no public decency laws he should be fine. But they wouldn’t know how much of a faux pas it was. Any Cardassian and most Bajorans would: he used Major Kira as a barometer for how the average Bajoran might react to anything he did, and while he’d never received comment or threat from her regarding his flirtations with Julian, it was clear that in recent days they’d crossed a line. What wasn’t clear was how harsh a line it was. There was such great potential for this to go drastically wrong.

Of course, he could have found Julian the night before, immediately after the meeting in Ops concluded. An eminently more sensible decision. Leave his detractors (Major Kira, Chief O’Brien) and his distractors (Dax) less time to engage with either Julian or himself. Leave himself less time for second thoughts and cowardice. Leave Julian less time for further public displays…

He could, in fairness, have put an end to the latter after the very first time Julian had kissed him, at their lunch table over a week ago. A short conversation, an education on the important Cardassian principles of _discretion_ and _privacy_ , and Julian might never have inappropriately touched him in the public sphere again. He could still have such a conversation, should he so choose. Why he hadn’t, why he probably _wouldn’t_ , were questions he did not yet wish to fully answer to himself. The furthest he’d gotten was an admittance that Julian was already fully aware of the variety of Cardassian cultural mores surrounding romance. Was fully aware of the ones Garak, specifically, tended to follow.

Another reason he was a fool. Julian would _never_ have kissed him by accident; that Garak ever considered it so was the most egregious self-deception he had engaged in for years, and a most unforgivable insult to Julian’s intelligence. Julian had orchestrated this all from the start.

Goodness, he was so proud of the man. And _so_ infuriated by him.

The appointed hour appeared with all the speed and suddenness of a sloth. Every few minutes Garak was checking the time, in the middle of fittings and purchases and even as he started his lunch hour, when he knew very well it was 13.00 hours. Closing time crawled towards him, the voices of customers dull and blunt, scraping against his attention. As he took a moment to catalogue his emotions sometime during his third bite of milon stew – a favourite of Mila’s that today lacked all taste – he recognised this was all an exaggerated version of how he felt before an Order assignment, back when he took them. Nervousness, of a kind. Stepping into a mystery, a scenario with unknown conclusion. But he’d had _training_ as an agent, which went some way to explaining why a genuine romantic encounter had him more rumpled than, say, attempting the assassination a target with ten times his experience and getting away with it.

(A gardener to the Cardassian embassy, _ha_ ; some people would believe anything. Or, at least, _disbelieve_ anything in such a way that led them no closer to the truth, but in fact helped obscure it. It helped that he was quite good at gardening.)

He wasn’t good at this, though. No if it was _real_ – fiction, fine, _that_ he’d be trained for. But no-one had taught him what to do when he meant it.

Distractions, distractions, distractions. It was 14.00 hours already. Time to begin.

Displays away, register hidden and sealed tight, lights off. With the front door closed and locked, his heart rate picked up pace. Eyes watched him as he moved. Though it was hours yet until any service, he could hear the call of a prylar outside the temple. Artificial currents from the atmospheric systems brought the scent of cloying incense. To his left stood two potential obstacles; security and Quark’s bar. To his right, nothing of note. But either route would likely contain someone planted by the Major to watch him, and either route contained the watching gazes of the Promenade crowds.

A poor set of choices. He turned right.

Past the beauty parlour, past the _Tear of K’kon_ , where Grozak gave him a friendly wave while serving gagh. Just past the lunch hours as it was, the restaurants and delis and replimat were emptying, and the Promenade itself beginning to heave with afternoon shoppers and those catching the post-lunch flights down to Bajor. Without due thought, Garak found himself keeping pace with the crowds, moving as a single fish among a shoal – a common tactic to lose pursers, though he’d yet to see any. The Major may not have sent anyone to watch him after all. Or, worse, she’d sent someone _competent_.

Either way, no-one engaged him. It was distressing, how he didn’t know whether to be suspicious or relieved.

On a whim, he ducked into the greengrocers and bought a small selection of fruit he knew Julian was partial to – if he was very lucky he might persuade Julian to come to an upper pilon, and have a small picnic in the light of the wormhole.

No unusual movement, no lurker at the doorway or on the upper balconies. He seemed to be in the clear. The cloth bag was a comforting weight in his hand, fruit bumping gently against his leg. The prylar’s singing had softened. The air tasted clear and cool in his mouth.

It was with an easy step that Garak finally stepped up to the entrance of the Infirmary.  Doctor Epya caught his eye and gave a nod, and when Garak could not immediately see Julian, he raised his chin at her in question.

Epya was quick enough not to need to ask what the question was. “He’s in the back,” she said, “attempting to impose some sense of order in the storage spaces.”

Once, not so very long ago – a year, at least, or even as recent as a few months – Doctor Epya would have hesitated to give Garak the time of day. Now he had become enough of an unobjectionable fixture of station life, and of Julian’s life, that giving him a slight smile and a bit of courtesy was now second nature. So Garak did what any well-bred Cardassian would do, and reciprocated: a gentle thankyou, a toothless smile, a tilt of the head. Nothing so overbearing as to offend a Bajoran’s distaste of overdone supplication – how different from a Cardassian’s desire for performative praise – but enough that Epya’s smile widened a fraction, and she waved him on through when a young nurse looked to object.

Through in the surgical area it was quiet, the sliding doors closing behind him with a soft _hiss_. Julian was exactly where Epya said he’d be, shoulders deep in a box of something Garak would guess to be antibiotics at a glance. Around him was a travesty of organisational ineptitude: flimsi and pads scattered across every vaguely flat surface, boxes and contents abandoned half sorted through, a collection of questionably clean surgical gowns piled on the floor. It was the most horrific mess.

Garak couldn’t help but smile at the sight.

“Why my dear Julian,” he said, and had the pleasure of watching Julian erupt from the box he was inspecting, gazelle limbs whipping every-which-way.

“Garak! What on earth are you doing here?”

“Is that any way to greet your…friend?” Julian began to splutter in the pause, and would have continued, lips contorting around a dozen competing responses, but Garak spoke over his attempts. “More to the point, Julian, how do you think it makes me feel, that my repeated instructions to you are repeatedly ignored?”

Julian’s lips froze, his brain tumbling over itself so much that it ground to a stop. “Instructions?”

“Yes, instructions.” Julian nodded slowly, not actually understanding. “About replicators.” Another nod. “And dirty dishes.” And another. “And your poor habit of leaving things unattended to.” A final nod, and Garak waited, but Julian offered no sudden exclamation of ‘Oh! Yes! That!’ or anything similar. Garak tutted again.

That set something off in Julian, who scowled and pulled himself upright. “I’m sorry Garak, you’ve caught me right in the middle of something, off guard and all that, and I’ve not the foggiest idea what you’re talking about.”

“No? You appeared to have an idea yesterday, during that meeting up in Ops.”

What joy, what wonder, to see understanding snap into place! What great satisfaction in watching Julian choke and stumble and pull back, eyes wide on Garak’s face, before pulling himself together and saying, rather weakly, “Oh.”

“Hmm.” Waltzing past him to rest against the edge of the least cluttered table, Garak looked him up and down. “Your shift is up, Julian. May I suggest you clear away all this? With all the diligence you displayed yesterday?”

At last, the reactions to Garak’s goading had graduated from twitching hands and fumbling words to a full-body blush. Nevertheless, he began to move around the room and pack things back into their boxes, wrap them up, organise them into piles that no doubt made sense to him. As he lifted something up to place it on a shelf across the room, the first thing that would be truly _cleared away_ , and not just consolidated into a single pile, he caught himself and locked eyes with Garak. He was still beet red, a glorious shade on him, and had begun to worry his bottom lip between his teeth.

“With _all_ the diligence of yesterday?”

Clever man. “Would I have said it if I didn’t mean it?”

“Alright…Elim.”

Julian was well justified in his grin, as he’d now pushed Garak to blush, a deep purple showing clear in the lighter areas of his scales. He had obviously been listening to Garak as attentively yesterday in Ops as he ever would across a replimat table.

_It implies an intimacy of emotion…_

Julian slid his burden onto the shelf with exaggerated slowness, ignoring Elim’s gaze. Then he brushed his hands clear of imaginary dust, brought his eyes up to meet Elim’s, and sauntered over to grab something from the table beside him. Pausing just next to him, Julian’s lips quivered between a solemn line and a grin.

“ _All_ the diligence?”

“Really, Julian, you shouldn’t need to ask the same question so many–” He was abruptly cut off by Julian sliding like a wave into his personal space, one hand on Elim’s hip and the other planted for balance on the table. Soft lips found purchase on his own. A heartbeat later and the wave had receded, Julian dashing off to heave another item into his arms. Elim touched the ends of his fingers to his tingling lips. An odd human custom, but he could see himself growing fond of it.

Again, Julian placed his burden into its proper place, hesitated, and then glided over to Elim. This time he did not surge forward into a human kiss, but instead reached for Elim’s hand. His pressed their hands together, palm to palm, his breath rushing out and over Elim’s skin. Elim shivered. Julian pulled away, darted back to another item, stealing glances at Elim all the while.

Elim could feel the blush deepening, his poor attempts to gulp down air quickening, his scales unbearably sensitive to the press of Julian’s eyes, let alone the press of his flesh. Had his skin ever felt so much? Had it ever been so finely tuned to the movement of warm air, to the confines of his own clothes, to the heated touch of another? Even in the midst of his work, Elim was sure, when he used his hands to search out lost threads and imperfections, he had never felt so much – his own hands, more full of nerve clusters than any other part of him, so precise as to be able to search out gaps in cloth smaller than a pinhead. It was near overwhelming. Only Julian’s steady gaint, his predictable movements – back and forth, to a box and away, to a shelf, to Elim, and away – only these were keeping Elim from fleeing the room and his own sensations.

Again Julian came to him, as the tide, placed a delicate kiss against his brow, brushed fingers over his twitching palm. Then away. Elim pulled air into his lungs. Watched. Waited. Back Julian came. Pressed him firmly against the table – had he seen something in Elim? Perhaps his distress was not so well hidden – and then pressed his teeth to the space below Elim’s ear.

“And palm to palm is holy palmer’s kiss.” With unexpected speed, he curled his hand around Elim’s own, and brought them both up to meet his forehead, as if a prayer had swum from his mind that minute into their clasped palms, his saint.

Elim smiled despite himself. “So droll compared to Drisellic.”

Julian laughed, sharp, sweet, and turned his face to that he could see Elim’s. “You wouldn’t tolerate me saying it in my butchered Cardassi, and it loses something in the translation.”

“I think right now I might tolerate you saying anything.”

At that Julian laughed again, and swept off to clear away one more item. Back and forth, the tide gaining speed, he took Elim’s words to heart. Palm to palm and lip to lip, he was serenaded with the sweetest of Drisellic’s romantic scenes in halting Cardassi. Even though he knew Julian must be working purely from memory and was struggling with fitting the Cardassi words inside his English mouth, Elim could not help but be charmed. Did Julian know what he was saying, such tender statements of devotion? A Cardassian took romance as serious as they took anything: no easy jovial words would be taken as true romance, as might happen with a human or trill. Julian was speaking sentiments fit to upend continents and empty seas. It was part of why Drisellic had been exiled – the love born from her prose moved too close to sedition, to close too loving another more than their own Cardassia.

It occurred to him that this was sedition, here. Julian rolled back to him, shoved him greedily up onto the table, sought him out with a hungry mouth and hungry hands. This, here – he was an exile already, but even were he not, he might just risk it – might just upend worlds and drain stars, place Cardassia behind and Julian in front. All to feel the beat of Julian’s heart beneath the soft skin and bones of his chest.

Elim surged forward, using one hand to cradle Julian’s own against his heart, and tangling the other in his curls of hair. Julian pushed back, throwing Elim against the console behind the table. They were at risk of pressing several dozen important buttons and perhaps cracking a screen, but neither felt any inclination to ease off.

 

* * *

 

In the main room of the infirmary, Nurse B’Jek was frowning at the door to the surgical and storage areas. They were frowning even as they continued their duties, compiling notes and administering hypos. During a quiet few seconds, they scooched over to Doctor Epya.

“They’ve been in there a while.” They said.

“Mhm.”

B’Jek kept their eyes on the door, but their frown increased at Epya’s response. “Shouldn’t we do something?”

“No.”

“Bashir’s shift is over.”

“That it is.”

B’Jek kept staring.

“Aren’t you…you’re never usually so laid back about – uh – this kind of thing.”

Epya raised her head at that, one hand in a bag of fruit that had been left carelessly on her workstation. “Nope.”

They waited in silence for a while. The surgical rooms were designed to be soundproof, as much of the station was, so they’d no inclination of what was happening inside.

“I mean,” Epya started, “don’t get me wrong. If you or someone else came in here, during work hours, and started flagrantly fraternising – especially with a _Cardassian_ of all things – I’d be furious. Wouldn’t stand for it.”

“But you waved him through!”

“I did. Course I did.”

“Why?”

“Well, an exiled Cardassian is usually so unlike your average non-exiled Cardassian that, after a reasonable period of probation to check, you can put them in the same category you’d put most strangers. A neutral, vaguely apathetic one.”

“You’re a _Bajoran_.”

“I’m aware, thank you. Also, technically Bashir’s not here during his work hours any more, so he can fraternise all he likes.”

“In the _surgical rooms_ , in _storage_ , which we _need to use_.”

Epya shrugged. “We don’t need anything from there for several hours at least, and we’ve nothing surgical booked. I _did_ think it through, you know. Besides,” she said, deciding on a piece of fruit from the bag and bringing it to her eye level for inspection, “with Garak in there egging Bashir on, I’ll bet those rooms will be the neatest they’ve ever been.”


End file.
